Comparative Examination of the Definition of Assault in the Criminal Code Act, 1916 of Nigeria and The Criminal Code Act, 1889 of Queensland, Australia

Abstract Assault is a civil wrong and a criminal offence at law. Hence, it is both a tort and a crime, and an aggrieved person is at liberty to pursue either of the two causes or both. But this paper focuses on the crime. The mens rea is intention to inspire fear of an attack in another or to make the recipient apprehensive of an attack as a present reality, or to have foreseen that that would be the effect on the victim, or to make physical contact with the person, directly or indirectly, without the person’s consent, or even with his consent, provided consent was not obtained fraudulently. The actus reus is the unlawful actual physical contact or the larger than life threat of it. Engendered in this definition is battery, which is the actual unlawful physical contact. Hence, the word ‘assault’ may be used also to cover battery. This paper explores, comparatively, the express twin provisions of Section 252 of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act, 1916 and that of Section 245 of the Queensland Criminal Code Act, 1899 as regards the crime of assault which are exactly the same with the Nigerian Code, having been derived from the Queensland Code, and exceptions to the rules in the said sections of both laws, and from comparative examination of both the letters of the law and the law in motion in the law court, derives a compendium of similarities and differences. This paper further examines the defenses provided in both statutes for the offense of assault which are for the most part the same in both jurisdictions.